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Friday, April 23, 2010

Thankless Arminians

kangaroodort, on April 22, 2010 at 5:25 pm Said:

Wrong. J.C. has never said that God is dependent on our choices. What he has said is that God’s knowledge of our choices is dependent on those choices. How could it be otherwise? If God never created us, would he know anything about us? Of course not. So God’s knowledge of us is dependent on their being an “us” to know something about.

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Normal Christians thank God, not merely for redeeming them or giving them existence, but for making each one of us the unique individuals that we are. But given Ben's backward view of God's relation to man, Ben can't thank God for making him the person he is. God wasn't responsible for the unique set of character-traits which make him who is he. God could have no inkling of what Ben was like until he made him. Somehow, there already had to be a Ben–like instant coffee. God simply added water, then waited to find out what flavor the coffee was.

This underscores a point I've often made: Arminians want as little to do with God as possible. No more and no less. Just the bare minimum.

12 comments:

Molinism certainly seems to say that God is dependent on our choices. God can't instantiate just any state of affairs, at least not unless he wants to make us "puppets" (as Craig would say). God's options are limited by the free will of man.

Of course I believe that much of what God knows about us is due to character traits that He gave us, but not all. He also knows us based on the character that He allows us to develop based on the free choices He allows us to make. God apparently wanted it that way, and apparently for good reasons (on my view), so it seems to me that your post is question begging once again.

So I don't have a problem at all thanking God for who I am, though that seems a little mancentered to me. Rather, I prefer to thank God for loving me enough to send his Son to die for me, a sinner. I thank Him that He loves all sinners (and not just me and some other frozen chosen) and I have the freedom to share that truth with anyone. I thank God that He is patient with me and is working in me and using me to reach others who also need Him. I thank God for a great many things. One thing is for sure, I do not thank God for irresistibly causing me to sin in accordance with His eternal decree, though I suppose you should.

In the end I long for more and more of God in my life because I do want my talents and abilities and everything about me to be used for His glory. That God wants us to attain such things through freely submitting to Him changes nothing with regards to our level of thankfulness or our desire for God to be what our life is all about.

As for what God foreknows about us and what constitutes that knowledge, Calvinists have enough problems of their own to account for in the context of God's "personal love" for us prior to creation:

Sorry, I meant to include this part in my comments since the post was more to do with thanking God for character traits instead of redeeming us (as you mentioned). I revised the first draft, but ended up posting the first draft by accident. Here is the other portion that would have replaced the section about being thankful for God saving me:

God gives us all unique gifts and abilities that God intends for us to use for His glory, though He apparently gives us the freedom to use those gifts for His glory or use them for our own glory. I see no problem with an Arminian thanking God for such abilities and talents, unique personality traits, etc.

much of what God knows about us is due to character traits that He gave us, but not all.

What exactly do these character traits effect? If they play any role in our choices and our identity, then just that much of our choices and identity are determined and puppetesque it would seem on the Arminian scheme.

So are we 45% puppet or only 15% or do these character traits play no determinative role whatsoever, in which case we are back to being wholly self-made individuals?

I see no problem with an Arminian thanking God for such abilities and talents, unique personality traits, etc

So people are inherently skillful at basket ball or philosophy or theology or law or art. These are innate abilities God gives persons. So if a person doesn't have that innate ability, he doesn't have the freedom to acquire it? Or are some abilities, talents, and traits developed by our own free choices to do things like practice? If so, how do we know which ones we should thank God for and which ones we should thank ourselves for?

I think I get what you were saying, if God did not create us then there would be nothing to know, but since God does create us then He knows us. Is that what you mean???

One question, when you wrote

Of course I believe that much of what God knows about us is due to character traits that He gave us, but not all. He also knows us based on the character that He allows us to develop based on the free choices He allows us to make.

So God did not give you all of your character traits and He allows you to develop as you make choices, but that would mean that until we physically make those choices that some of our character traits are unknown to God. Even if you fall back to God being outside of time it would seem that Logically speaking God would learn.

You're backpedalling from the terms of your original claim. And your scaled back version vitiates your original claim.

Not at all. I never said that nothing that God knows about us can be derive from how He created us or what traits He created us with. Maybe you mean that I am backpedaling from the way that you wrongly took my comments and added your own unfounded commentary to them, reading things into them that I never intended to convey. If that is what you mean, then I agree.

Mitch pegged it. I've said it before and it bears repeating. You can argue with an Arminian until you are blue in the mouth, but logically it all comes down to this: All Arminians believe, in some way, that there are things that can occur that surprise God.

The inevitable end of Arminianism is open theism. It's inescapable. Arminians are so wound up about "doing violence to the will of the creature" that they couldn't care less about doing violence to the will of God. A more man-centered religion I cannot think of (perhaps Mormonism).

"....All Arminians believe, in some way, that there are things that can occur that surprise God...."

Hah!

Psa 50:5 "Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!" Psa 50:6 The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Selah Psa 50:7 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Psa 50:8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. Psa 50:9 I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. Psa 50:10 For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. Psa 50:11 I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. Psa 50:12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Psa 50:13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Psa 50:14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, Psa 50:15 and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."

I think your right although most Arminians probably haven't thought about it.

The will of a person is either in agreement with the will of God or not. If a person's will is not in agreement with the will of God then God sins not, but it is the human will that sins. If a person is in agreement with the will of God then why tout the will of man when God's will should be venerated? If we do God's will then do we say that we thought of it first or that God thought of it first and we merely agreed with him over it?

The only way to venerate the will of man when he agrees with the will of God is to separate the will of man from the will of God. How bizarre is that?

But Arminians don't generally see it because they are so focused on their own decisions that they go back to the other side of the debate regarding the nature of sin where Arminians believe that sin is what we commit rather than what we intend where God would be construed as being culpable for activities he caused that could be nothing but sins for us to do. (Obvious examples from the Bible are Joseph being sold into slavery and the crucifixion.)